My wife and I will be spending 6 days in Colmar and have rented a car for 4 of those days so that we may visit EGUISHEM, KAYSERBERG, RIQUEWIHR,RIBEAUVILLE AND SELESTAT.
Will we be fine without GPS? Is the route clearly marked? Is it one(1) road for all of the above listed towns? We will be visiting each town on separate days from Colmar. Is it easy to drive from Colmar to each of these towns?
Thank you so much for your input. Much appreciated!
Last fall, we stayed outside Colmar and drove up and down the Alsace route without GPS. Before leaving our B&B, we uploaded the Google Map for the area and used it to help navigate.
We spent two full days and hit Eguisheim, Gunsbach, Ribeauville, Riquewihr, and Keysersberg. It was delightful !
The towns were minutes away from each other.
The Route des Vins, like most tourist routes, is not one main route, but a combination of roads between villages chained together. There are small signs at junctions which are easy to miss. If you are leaving a village you need to know the next location and follow signs to that.
An example sign here; http://img.over-blog-kiwi.com/0/19/51/34/20160921/ob_4beff2_route-des-vins-d-alsace-21-sept-2016.JPG
Brown signs are supplementary tourist attraction signs.
Tourist map of the route here: http://www.tourisme-alsace.com/medias/pdf/brochures/carte-route-des-vins-et-velo-route-fr.pdf
A GPS would be limited use, as it would route you along the quickest route, not necessarily the Route des Vins.
I would recommend the IGN (French National mapping authority), 1:100,000, which you should be able to buy in Colmar: http://espaceloisirs.ign.fr/boutique/colmar-mulhouse-bale.html
We've never used a GPS, and found Alsace to be one of the easier places to navigate in France. Plus, pretty much every village is worth visiting, so you can hardly go wrong.
I recommend staying outside Colmar with a car. Driving in and out of the city is a pain even if your lodging includes parking. I stayed at a B&B in Eguisheim for 3 nights and loved it. I ended up eating dinner there every night, so I didn't drink and drive. The others (don't know about Selestat) are larger, so more restaurant possibilities.
The car I rented had built-in GPS which was a godsend for Burgundy, but in Alsace it was just a security blanket. Every town and village has a TI with maps showing the wine routes and the chateau routes and plenty of brochures for the many other sights in the area.
A short drive from the castle of Haut-Koenigsbourg is Monkey Mountain - I really enjoyed the colony of Barbary apes there.
We've done this several times. We use a GPS, but you don't really need one if you've got a reasonably good map. Like any larger town, Colmar can be a little complicated until you learn it. Parking is a challenge. We've stayed in Eguisheim on our last two visits and have found it to be a great base.
